Uriah Hall explains moving post-fight speech

Middleweight Uriah Hall knocked out Bevon Lewis at UFC 232 on Saturday, in a moment the solidified his career resurrection – The TUF Beast began his UFC career with comparisons to league G.O.A.T. Anderson Silva, but was on a three-fight losing streak. Now he’s 2-1 his last three.

However, rather than exult in victory, Hall offered a moving tribute to his sister, who struggles with depression.

https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1079172953965613061

‘Primetime’ expanded on the remarks backstage post-fight.

I was fighting for more than myself, said Hall, as transcribed by Ken Hathaway for MMAjunkie. I was fighting for my sister, I was fighting for my mom. I didn’t talk about it, because I didn’t want any sympathy. You know, I knew what I had to do and I used that motivation. My sister wrote a song called ‘Standing,’ that’s why I walked out to it. And she said she was inspired to write that song when I broke my toe. But the funny thing is I was inspired by that song to fight. So it worked so perfectly for us.

She accomplished so much in her life, she’s married with kids, and we’ve seen people that go through depression, like someone like Robin Williams, where you’d never thought in a million years someone like that, who was so happy, and when something like that happens I’m like, ‘Oh, that sucks,’ but when it’s happening to someone I care about, it was like, ‘Wow, it’s really real.’ And people are really going through this.

So, when I saw my sister was going through that, I felt like I had to be some kind of positive reinforcement to let her know that, Hey, I failed so much in probably the biggest stage in the world and everyone gets to see me do it. Not everyone gets to see people fail, but everyone gets to see me do it. So, if everyone is seeing me do it and I keep standing, it’s a reminder to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to keep standing, too.’